That is how the title should read. If a gov’t agency wants to know who your friends are, they want to know who might aid you in a time of need. If they want to know your assets, they want to strip you of whatever those assets might provide (legal fees or shelter in time of crisis). This way, your friend isn’t available (read: in for questioning) to post bail after the ATF kicked in your door, froze all your accounts, and seized all your assets, stripping you bare against the full weight of the US legal system. It is much easier to convict someone who cannot afford a good lawyer.

In the past, you didn’t investigate people until you had probable cause or at least a reasonable suspicion that they were up to something. Now the ATF is treating the American people like they are criminals from the word go. Of course, at the rate we’re going every American will be a criminal for something soon enough.

No reason to make it easy for them though. Facebook will gladly give up your full network. Any commercial mail client will do so as well. Expect your credit card records to be data mined, and your phone records (everyone you ever called over a phone in your name, for years). And that is just the obvious stuff.

And lastly, vote. Vote for representatives that will put the ATF back into its place, and return us to a Constitutional form of government.